


The Witch of Space

by mademoisellePlume



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Homestuck
Genre: Gen, daemon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-08
Updated: 2011-10-07
Packaged: 2017-10-24 09:49:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/262097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mademoisellePlume/pseuds/mademoisellePlume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate universe where the kids came from a world with daemons, what's different? And what's the same?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Witch of Space

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a captchalogue post: http://captchalogue.livejournal.com/1365.html?thread=1646933#t1646933
> 
> "It's an Alt!verse with His Dark Materials daemons!
> 
> For those who don't know, in HDM daemons are basically a representation of your soul outside your body in the shape of an animal; the wiki article has a much better explanation.
> 
> How would things be different with daemons? How would they be similar? How do the trolls wrap their minds around: looks like a lusus, acts like a lusus sometimes, but...not a lusus? Also, who has settled? And who hasn't? Who settles in the game? Did going God Tier change things for John?"

When Jade heard what her title in the game was, she suddenly knew exactly what she had to do next. Onyx, in the form of a Tasmanian Devil, whined and crawled into her arms. She kissed him on the forehead, knowing that neither of them was going to enjoy this. “If we want a chance of succeeding, Onyx, then we have to do our best.” She told him.

“I know.” His voice was low and miserable. “At least I like being a bird.”

“…Karkat’s talking to me again.” She said, and Onyx took the silent hint, nuzzling her cheek before flowing into a snake and wrapping himself around her neck. He didn’t seem to be willing to let go of her quite yet.

 

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling gardenGnostic [GG]

 

CG: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?  
CG: YOU’RE ABOUT TO GO TO FUCKALL NOWHERE  
CG: WHY  
CG: ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW  
CG: I TRIED PESTERING YOU FOR AGES BUT YOU JUST IGNORED ME  
CG: BITCH  
CG: SO I WENT TO THIS POINT IN YOUR TIMELINE  
GG: oh jeeeez karkat  
GG: who says its any of your business?? :(  
CG: I DO  
CG: BITCH I’M YOUR FUCKING GOD  
CG: I CREATED YOU  
CG: NOW TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE ABOUT TO DO  
GG: eurgh fine!!!  
GG: im the witch of space, right????  
CG: YEAH SO  
CG: WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH FUCKING ABANDONING YOUR CREEPY-ASS SOUL-LUSUS-MONSTER THING  
GG: well if im going to be the witch of space i have to be a proper witch first  
GG: and onyx is not creepy!!!! >:( you are with your weird-ass lack of daemon!!!  
GG: how does that even work???  
GG: im sorry but if we all ever meet you’re going to be so creepy!!!!  
CG: YES THIS IS THE IMPORTANT THING TO FOCUS ON RIGHT NOW  
CG: WHAT DOES ABANDONING YOUR STUPID SOUL-LUSUS HAVE TO DO WITH BEING A WITCH  
CG: GOD YOU’RE SUCH A FUCKING IDIOT JUST GODDAMN ANSWER MY QUESTION  
GG: i did!!! :| seriously karkat keep up!!  
GG: do they even have witches on your  
GG: oh wait  
GG: i guess since  
GG: you don’t have daemons or anything  
GG: your witches are different  
GG: troll society sure is weird!!!!  
CG: GET  
CG: TO  
CG: THE  
CG: FUCKING  
CG: POINT!  
GG: well  
GG: witches have to do this  
GG: it’s a trial or a test or something  
GG: i think shamans do it too  
GG: grandpa kept notes about it  
CG: BUT I THOUGHT YOU NOOKSTAINS COULDN’T GO TOO FAR AWAY FROM YOUR THINGS  
CG: DAEMONS, WHATEVER  
CG: JOHN SAID THAT IT HURT  
GG: well yeah that’s true  
GG: but its different for witches  
GG: it’s a side effect of what im going to do now  
GG: its going to hurt :(  
GG: but then it wont from then on :)  
CG: OKAY THEN  
CG: I GUESS  
GG: if it doesn’t kill us anyways  
GG: gotta go now karkat, becs here to take us!!!!  
CG: WAIT WHAT THE FUCK  
CG: JADE DON’T FUCKING RISK YOUR FUCKING LIFE  
gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]  
CG: JADE YOU FUCKING THINKPAN DEPRIVED BITCH  
CG: YOU BETTER NOT FUCKING DIE BEFORE YOU EVEN GET INTO THE GAME  
CG: …  
CG: BLUH BLUH HUGE WITCH

Captchaloguing her lunchtop, she got onto Bec’s back, Onyx now a mouse in her pocket. And away they went, the world shuddering and changing around them in patterns. It almost seemed to reflect off her glasses with temporal dishonesty.

They were at the destination, a barren, death-ruled part of the most northern part of the world. As Jade got off Bec, Onyx was a ringtailed lemur in her arms, clinging to her and shaking. “No, no, Jade, let’s just go home, it’s cold and bad here! I don’t want to do this!”

Jade felt her eyes tear up. “Onyx, Onyx, please, you know why this has to be done. Our session is barren from the start, isn’t it? If we’re going to even have a chance, we can’t hesitate in taking every advantage we can get!” She tried to pull Onyx off of her, again and again, but Onyx just kept clinging. Jade heard her lunchtop beep from inside her captchalogue, and knew Karkat was trying to demand answers from her.

Eventually, she succeeded in making her daemon let go of her, and he was a tiny rabbit, a cat, a kangaroo, and then a squirrel, curled into a miserable ball, staring at her pleadingly.

Jade blinked away tears, and made herself walk away, refusing to look back. It didn’t take long before she felt that invisible connection draw taught, and she stopped for a moment that stretched into eternity.

One step forwards, and another, and another. Jade gasped in agony as she strode onwards, her heart slowly tearing in two. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she walked onwards. It hurt. It hurt so much more then she thought it was going to.

But it had to be done, and she didn’t dare let herself stop again. She wouldn’t be able to continue if she did. Jade hoped fervently Onyx wasn’t feeling the same bone-grinding pain that she was as her feet took her across the expanse of frozen earth.

 **  
  
**

 

 


	2. Going Grimdark

Rose saw her mother dead in the crystal, with Jack Noir’s bestial face seeming to grin right at her. Briar wept, sitting in the lap of a turtle-consort in the form of a porcupine. She saw this, saw Fornux the albino lynx that was her mother’s daemon fade away, lying as it was over the also-fading body of John’s father’s daemon, the sea-turtle Etna.

She spoke more with Jade, and the eponymous white text guy and both encouraged and prompted her to take up the cue ball given to her and ask of it a question that was probably unwise to ask. Hearing Briar’s rough voice ask her to reconsider as the symbol of light glowed in her pupils, Rose found herself changing.

She slips into the fabled blackdeath trance of the woegothics, quaking all the while in the bloodeldritch throes of the broodfester tongues. Briar convulses as he’s placed on the floor, breakfires burning in his eyes as he flicks through various terrible shapes. Rose advises the members of her Complacency not to be alarmed, as they chronicle the event in tomes bound in the tanned, writhing flesh of a tortured hellscholar, with runes stroked in the black tears bled from the corruption-weary eyes of fifty thousand imaginary occultists.

Rose and Briar have gone grimdark, and it is painfully obvious.

Finally, Briar settles on a single form, and Roses’ blackening skin crawls just a little. He will not change again while they are grimdark, this she knows, but this is not the shape he had been meant to take forevermore. The lavender-ringed octopus seems to need no water to swim or breathe, and moves through the air towards her. The rings seem to glow, and two of his tentacles stroke her darkened skin.

She wonders if Briar will be in this form on Derse. Perhaps he will still be able to shift, or perhaps he will take his true settled form.

This wondering is nothing but idle thoughts in the back of her head as she fails to resist the urge to go and seek out revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Briar is supposed to be a weirdly-coloured blue ringed octopus by the way. (Well, the only difference in his colour is that his rings glow lavender rather then blue.)


	3. Seer: Descend

Darc writhed happily in the air besides John. She was currently in the form of a Paradise Flying Snake, but instead of a progression of differently coloured dots, her scales were dotted with the same bright blue John wore. It was the same in every form that she took now that John had Ascended to God Tier.

“Hi Rose! Wow, I did not expect to find you here!” He stood in the second room he’d encountered after entering the castle, and saw Rose for the first time, awake and in person. But…just looking at her made something in the seat of his soul shift uncomfortably.

“Nyurb gu’ilg” Words spurted from her mouth, and they almost didn’t match up with the way her lips moved. Darc drifted through the air towards Briar, looping herself around him loosely. His tentacles pushed her away almost immediately.

“Heh…what? Also, why are you all gray like that? You look weird.” John frowned, cocking his head to the side as Darc shifted into a flying squirrel, blue bands striped through the brown fur. The squirrel daemon murmured something quietly to Briar, and got the same sort of response that John was getting.

“G’hroog fib’th mur brup brup.”

“Uh…” John was plainly confused, a bead of sweat dropping down his face. Was this an actual other language? It didn’t have any cadence that he associated with the various other languages that (used to) flourish on Earth.

“G’HROOG FIB’TH MUR BRUP BRUP!” She was getting frustrated, that was obvious, shouting at him. Her shoulders were tensed, he could see, and her movements were just the tiniest bit jerky.

“Rose, I can’t understand a word you are saying. It is a lot sillyspeak and gobbledygook.” He chuckled a bit, trying to mask his growing discomfort with her strangeness.

“Haughauuthr’l…” Rose groaned, and Briar glided through the air, floating besides Rose, tentacles waving gently underneath his body.

“Wait, I know what’s going on here. It finally happened! You have gone grimdark!!! I told you Rose. I warned you about…what did you call them? The broodfester throes?” He made a face at his last question, wrinkling his nose up. His daemon chirped and she swooped through the air, cuddling up to Briar, whose rings glowed even brighter. In the species of octopus Briar now embodied, this would usually be a sign that it had bitten and poisoned whatever was bothering it.

“…” The dark shadows that seemed to burn eternally in both Rose’s and Briar’s auras flared gently.

“It’s okay Rose, don’t worry. We will find a cure for your stubborn throes. But I’m still trying to find our parents! I thought my Dad might have come to this castle to check out that huge black rain cloud. Did you see the cloud, Rose? It’s pretty awesome.”

“Fnlth gohluyng j’rg horthaht!” Rose bit off the gobbledygook, her fists clenching and her grey face almost seeming to get a bit darker. And though John was still trying to hear Rose’s tones and mood through the strange sounds she was making, she was clearly not getting any happier.

“What? You sound kind of upset. What is it, Rose?” He kind of wanted to touch her, but even Briar was simply next to her, a good five inches of space between them. Darc withdrew from her nuzzling of Briar, a little, perturbed by the strangeness of the other daemons behaviour, how it echoed Rose’s so precisely. More like a shadow of Rose then a part of her, Darc thought for a moment, and the idea sent her back to John, turning into a ferret and curling around his neck, most of her body hidden by his blue hood.

“Jgngn, fnlth gohluyng j’rg HOTHAHT!” Rose repeated her words, this time shouting the last word at him. He flinched a little, but somehow understood a little bit more of what she was trying to say.

John’s hands clamped onto his cheeks in surprise. “Wait, are you talking about our parents? Oh man… you mean they’re here?!”

“Shgvb throl. Goors fn’nnyuld hothahty’j otot!” Whatever Rose was trying to say, it was clear from how vehement she was being about it that it was serious. Maybe…maybe some of the darkness in her voice and manner wasn’t because of the grimdarkness, but because…

“Are you saying they’re in trouble?? Oh no! Rose, we have to go help them!” He took his hands off of his face, as Rose buried her face in a soft purple pillow. Briar gently tried to tug it out of her hands with two tentacles.

“MMPH PHLTHMMPHMPHMF RRMPHPMRPH”

A part of John wanted to pat Rose comfortingly on the shoulder. Luckily, that particular temptation was vetoed by your common sense. “Yes, I am frustrated too. But there is no time for such lamentations! Do you think you can find them again?”

“Shruggot.” She sighed and captchalogued the pillow again, nodding a bit.

“Great! I can’t wait to see my Dad. It feels like it’s been forever since I saw him. Please lead the way, Rose!” He bowed a little, and gestured grandly for her to lead the way out of the room.

He trailed behind Rose, one hand reaching up and pulling Darc out of his hood, cuddling her in his arms as she turned into a tortoise with a brilliantly blue shell. Briar was drifting along a good three feet above and besides Rose’s right shoulder. The weird thing about that was, he thought, that sometimes Briar pushed through the air like the octopus was in water, swimming though the wind with the black shadow flickering out behind him. And sometimes Briar simply glided, tentacles motionless, body still as it pushed through the air like it was being carried.

Rose used her magic to remove an idol that was sitting on top of a transportalizer. And John blanched, seeing a room covered in blood and the bodies of carapaces both black and white. “Oh no! Rose, what happened in here?”

“Yvjyrn yulk frobithh.” Was the answer he got from Rose, and John looked around the room again at the tragedy they stood in the midst of. Even with their strange lack of daemon, the carapaces were friendly things, from his experience, and certainly didn’t deserve this dreadful fate. And he had a guess what Rose was trying to tell him, this time.

“Was it Jack? Are you saying it was Jack, Rose?”

“FRU’FRNUHUH JGOG HHGH.” She’s shouting again, and it’s with a high Prankster’s Gambit and a chuckle that he realizes what part of her frustration is probably coming from.

“What’s that, Rose? Are you getting aggravated that I am talking to you kind of like you are a dog?”

She said nothing in response, simply retrieving the pillow and shoving her face in it again. John was feeling more comfortable with her the more she demonstrated that he could still gently needle her and get somewhat normal reactions from her. Darc flowed out of his arms in the form of a platypus with a blue beak, waddling closer to one of the bodies that John was doing his best to stop thinking about.

“That is a really nice pillow by the way. It goes well with your weird dark skin and gothy ensemble.” He told her, being totally honest. Purple of that shade suited Rose.

“Knryip.” That wasn’t very hard to understand, and he beamed widely when he replied brightly.

“You’re welcome!”

And again he followed her, up endless stairs, through long corridors, past bookshelves and torn down tapestries. Finally, when he could stand the silence no longer, he opened his mouth and said the first thing he thought of….which was not the best of topics, retrospectively.

“By the way, did you know that Karkat thinks we are supposed to get married?”

“Gorthytch svulk borbly’ahth?” Roses’ eyebrows lift in a way that’s not grimdark at all. That sardonicism, that pent-in sarcasm that just ached to make psychological observations about Karkat’s desire to pair them off, that was pure Lalonde. She doesn’t seem distressed by the idea, really, but she’s sort of distracted seeming at the moment. He had no idea what could be distracting her, unless…

“Wait! I hope that didn’t come off as a proposal or anything!” His hands were on his face again. “Sorry, I’m just making conversation. I guess I am a little nervous… Because technically, this is the first time we have ever met, and also, you are talking like an eldritch monster, so I’m kind of babbling. We don’t actually have to get married though. I mean, not if you don’t want to.” He’s babbling and stumbling, and a little bit of him is glad she can’t quite manage english at the moment because he kind of doesn’t want to hear her opinion of why he’s stumbling over his words like this.

“Oh, hey, and I notice Briar’s not changing any! Is he settled, Rose, or does he just really like this shape? It’s pretty neat, I didn’t know there were octopuses with purple rings on them!

“…” She opts for nothing, just raises one of her blond eyebrows at all of his babbling, and he feels a bit better.

“Hehe. Ok, I’ll shut up now.”

All too soon, that almost-comfortable air between them vanishes. John and Darc feel the gentle touch of the wind on their faces, but they’re numb to it for the first time since Ascending. There’s picnic remnants strewn about. There’s no cake, he realizes a bit numbly. And there are two bodies, two bodies that are bloodied and empty with no turtle or feline nearby. No daemons. And for them, for humans, the only people who don’t have daemons are dead.

His father is dead.

Darc is a wolf, a wolf with blue-tipped ears and she howls, every iota of her grief in that howl. He doesn’t have that same ability.

Rage bursts out of him, and spreads to her, and they attack the monster, the demon, who’s killed so many, and killed the parents of Rose and himself. They attack and…

And…

John looks down a little at the sword. He falls, Darc managing to fall underneath him so she’s supporting him, but her legs buckle as the life begins to drain from both of them. They collapse and aren’t even cognizant of Rose making her own doomed attack.

John dies, and his daemon dies too, lying under his head and shoulders, propping him up as the blood drips down from his chest and stains the beautiful blue of his clothing.

John is dead and his daemon is dead with him but she doesn’t fade away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	4. Davesprite

“Dude?”

“Yeah?”

“Is…” He swallowed a bit, feeling decided uncool as he asked this question, knowing there was no irony in it, no real shell to defend the utter vulnerability of the worry he felt. “Is that Kali’s settled form?”  
His alternate future self, his orange creamsicle clone, Davesprite, looked at him for a very, very long moment. And around him, a small horde of glowing orange killer bees buzzed and moved.

It was unnerving, and it was a testament to what a coolkid Dave really was that he hadn’t reacted strongly upon first meeting the other Dave and seeing the swarm of bees that was his daemon. That he hadn’t asked questions until this moment, pausing in the middle of busily swindling the markets and making as much money as the cackling blind troll needed to ask the thing that had preyed on his mind for a while now.

A daemon shouldn’t be like that, part of his mind insisted. Jade was clearly freaked out every time she caught sight of Davesprite, and Dave could not blame her. Kali was all broken up into hundreds of bees, and she hadn’t become anything else even once.

The other kids had been hinting at asking this of him. Was this the form that his Kali would end up taking? Could he tell if something was wrong with Kali now? How could he stand being so near the swarm-daemon? It only made how he felt worse. It was part of why he was talking to TZ so much these days. She didn’t really understand how strange it was, and so didn’t bring it up.

Kali hated it. She hadn’t spoken since the other-Dave had shown up. Dave could feel her utter terror as she alternatively cuddled closer to him then she usually did and prowled as far away from him as either of them could stand. And when she got too close to the glowing orange bee swarm, and she was in a furred form, ever single last hair stood straight on end.  
Right now she was a mouse in the pocket of the fuzzy red suit he was wearing, and he could feel her trembling lightly against his leg. They both dreaded, and needed to hear the answer.

“It’s my Kali’s settled form, yes.” Davesprite finally answered after a very, very long silence. “I don’t know if it’s going to be your Kali’s form.”

Dave gawked. “Dude. I don’t know if you noticed this or not, but we’re kind of the same person. Same Stiller glasses, same impeccable ironic façade, same childhood, et cetera and so forth?”

“No. We’re not. Not exactly." Dave flinched, but Davesprite didn't seem to notice.

"You didn’t spend over two months with only one other human in this fucking game. You didn’t lose John. You didn’t watch Jade face her meteor as it fell like God decided just to stomp out her life. You didn’t mess with your time powers for no real point, playing out a doomed future because Rose said it would help your alpha self later. You didn’t abandon Rose to stop existing. You didn’t give up your alpha status and take a permanent beta role.” Davesprite’s words went to blunt and sharp and angry, and Kali’s buzzing grew louder and louder.

“She’s a reflection of my fucking with time, of my fucking life, and I don’t have the answers for you this time, dude. Take care of your friends, maybe your Kali will end up something normal.”

Dave didn’t know what to say, hearing some of the resentment he’d always kinda figured Davesprite had to have towards him. And he wondered if the reason he always said ‘my’ Kali wasn’t just for ease of reference, but because…well, Kali was all Davesprite had left, that was his and no one else’s. That…Dave hadn’t and couldn’t take.

“Dude, I…”

“It’s fine. It’s cool. You had to ask.” Davesprite said, poker face suddenly on again. “I got shit to do man. Just…go ahead and run around for your little troll girlfriend. It’s fine.”

Dave nodded and turned away, hearing the buzzing start to quieten qith the sound of Davesprite’s wings flapping, knowing the other him was leaving. Dave didn’t return to the stock market. He found a quiet place, hugged Kali, who’d turned into a trembling raccoon, as tightly as he possibly could, burying his face in her fur, glasses in one hand. His phone beeped, but he ignored it.

He just needed to feel Kali like this, and pray he wouldn’t fuck up and break his perfect little daemon into a hundred buzzing pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to just make Kali honey bees, but then I read that swarms of africanized honey bees have a habit of ‘absconding’ and I just couldn’t resist.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I couldn't fit it in, Onyx is going to settle as an Eclectus parrot!


End file.
